With his team leading the Winnipeg Jets 1-0 three minutes into the third period on Sunday afternoon, Washington Capitals centre Connor McMichael dug in for an offensive-zone faceoff with Jets pivot Adam Lowry.
When Lowry lurched forward and fell during a scrambled draw, the puck suddenly sat tantalizingly free to the left of Winnipeg goalie Connor Hellebuyck. As McMichael loaded up a shot, a teammate also darted into the mix from the top of the circle. Seconds later, the puck had slid through Hellebuyck and — because it wasn’t immediately clear who actually put the attempt on net — play-by-play man Joe Beninati just let out a surprised “scores!” without assigning a name to the goal.
When a player was officially linked to the tally on the game sheet, it was given to the guy who couldn’t buy one for half a season, but has been filling the net since late January: Alex Ovechkin.
This was no signature Ovi tally, but no goal could better serve as the second panel in a how it started/how it’s going meme summarizing Ovechkin’s bizarre year. Through 43 games, he was sitting on eight goals while shooting 5.4 per cent. Since Jan. 27, he’s got 18 goals in 24 outings as every fifth attempt he puts on net — yep, he’s shooting 20 per cent these days — crosses the line.
Even when he barely gets his blade on it and the shooting motion seems to come more from his teammate than Ovechkin, the puck is squeezing through Vezina-calibre goalies.
So is Ovechkin all the way back? He opened the weekend with a power-play tally in Carolina, got his bleeder versus Hellebuyck, then added the final score in Washington’s 3-0 triumph Sunday. On that beauty, he streaked to the net and tucked the puck in with a power move to the backhand.
Ovechkin has goals in five straight games, tallying a total of eight in that stretch. Since Jan. 27, his 18 goals trail only Auston Matthews (19) and Zach Hyman (21).
If he scores six more times in Washington’s final 12 contests, he’ll wind up with 32 goals. Suddenly, this year where we’ve wondered if the 38-year-old fell off a cliff could produce the exact same goal total he put up at age 25 in 2010-11. The next year he scored 38. After that, Ovechkin won four straight Rocket Richard Trophies and seven of the next eight.
That’s not happening again, but if he whittles down the career gap between him and Wayne Gretzky to, say, a 40-goal season, maybe we all get back to believing he can become the all-time leader around this time next year?
It’s certainly been a strange season for Ovechkin. And weird is definitely the broader theme in Washington. With two wins on the weekend — including a wild 7-6 shootout victory over the Hurricanes — the Caps are back in the final Eastern Conference playoff spot.
This is the same team that was a seller two weeks ago at the deadline, jettisoning big D-man Joel Edmundson and winger Anthony Mantha. The day Mantha was traded he had the second-most goals on the team with 20, two behind Dylan Strome and one more than Ovechkin.
Washington’s goal-differential is minus-27. For context, only two Eastern Conference clubs have a worse mark and the incredibly maligned Ottawa Senators have a better one at minus-24.
If you’re looking for some logic, though, a Caps power play that ranked 29th in the league on Christmas Day has been the best unit in the NHL (34.3 per cent) since Jan. 27. Exactly half the 18 goals Ovechkin has scored since that day have come on the man advantage.
That all looks a bit more familiar. And it’s once again easy to wonder if we’ll be seeing it for a while yet.
Other Takeaways
• As noted, Zach Hyman is one of only two guys scoring goals at a higher clip than Ovechkin in the past eight weeks or so. Edmonton may have gone 0-for-Ontario on the weekend with losses in Toronto and Ottawa, but Hyman scored in both games to notch his 49th and 50th tallies of the year.
What a story he’s been in Northern Alberta, going from 27 to 36 to… maybe 55 goals in his three years there. Not long after Hyman popped No. 50 on Sunday, Sam Reinhart became the NHL’s third 50-goal scorer this year thanks to him opening the scoring versus Philly and closing it out with an empty-netter in the 4-1 win. That means two guys whose previous career highs were 36 (Hyman) and 33 (Reinhart) nailed No. 50 on the same evening. Incredible.
• It’s not a perfect comparison, but I’m starting to wonder how much Jonathan Drouin’s career trajectory could follow that of Blake Wheeler. Drouin had a huge hand in Colorado’s crazy four-goal comeback versus Pittsburgh on Sunday, scoring two goals — including the OT winner — and setting up the score by Nathan MacKinnon that tied the game late in the third. With a whopping eight points during a four-game point streak, Drouin has been playing on about a 75-point pace since mid-December.
Clearly, at age 28, there’s some late-blooming potential here.
Wheeler was 25 when he had a breakout 64-point campaign in 2011-12 during the first Jets 2.0 season. He was on his second organization at that point, having been a fifth-overall pick in 2004 by the Bruins.
Drouin, of course, is on his third team after being selected No. 3 overall by Tampa Bay in 2013. They’re different players, for sure, but both are pass-first playmakers with great vision. Wheeler didn’t really start becoming a point-per-game type until he was 29, notching 78 points with the Jets.
Drouin will turn 29 on Saturday and it’s becoming more believable he, too, could yet become a 55-assist, 20-goal guy with all that previously untapped or wrongly used talent. If he is to follow a Wheeler-like trajectory, the odds seem much better if — after inking a one-year deal on Colorado last summer — he and the Avs find a way to make this a long-term match.
Weekend Warrior
Before Ovechkin got his goals on Sunday, the Caps honoured T.J. Oshie for recently skating in game No. 1,000. He went out and celebrated with a couple of apples in the win over Winnipeg.
Red and White Power Rankings
1. Vancouver Canucks (45-20-5): How about Casey DeSmith’s March? The guy who was picked up from Montreal for Tanner Pearson just as training camp was opening is 4-1-1 in the month with a .917 save percentage after Saturday’s 4-2 triumph over Calgary.
2. Toronto Maple Leafs (40-21-9): The Leafs were in tough on Sunday night, playing for the second time in as many days against a strong Carolina club in its own building. The Canes did, indeed, skate away with a 2-1 victory, but Joseph Woll looked the best he has since returning from a high-ankle sprain with a 41-save performance.
3. Winnipeg Jets (44-22-5): Winnipeg had a forgettable weekend, dropping back-to-back games on Long Island and in D.C. by a combined score of 9-3. Saturday’s loss to the Islanders marked the first time Hellebuyck — largely hung out to dry by his mates — has been pulled from a game all season.
4. Edmonton Oilers (42-23-4): Blowing a 3-1 second-period lead in Ottawa on Sunday was not the way the Oilers wanted to close out the weekend, especially after falling behind 5-0 the night before in Toronto.
5. Calgary Flames (33-31-5): It came in a loss, but Rasmus Andersson had to be happy to see a puck go in for him on Saturday for the first time in 27 outings.
6. Ottawa Senators (30-36-4): An Ottawa offence that hadn’t fired five goals since Feb. 13 did it twice on the weekend, beating the Devils 5-2 in Jersey on Saturday and coming back on the Oilers for a satisfying 5-3 victory on home-ice 24 hours later.
7. Montreal Canadiens (26-32-12) Cayden Primeau has started three games since Montreal’s crease was unclogged on deadline day by the Jake Allen trade. The youngster has won two of those games — including Sunday night’s 36-save, 5-1 win in Seattle — while posting a .943 SP.
The Week Ahead
• The Rangers play three times this week and if backup Jonathan Quick wins one of those contests, he’ll register his 392nd career victory and pass Ryan Miller as for the most wins in the NHL by an American tender.
• Former Penguin Jake Guentzel — who has 10 points in his first eight games with Carolina — visits his old team in Pittsburgh on Tuesday night. That same evening, the Wings are in Washington for a huge showdown in terms of the chase for the final Eastern Conference playoff berths.
• Wednesday night brings a possible first-round preview when the Bruins visit the Lightning in Tampa. If I told you those two teams were going to meet in Round 1 before the season because one of them finished in the Atlantic attic, who would you think won the division and who would you have guessed was a wild card squad?
• Connor Bedard plays in Canada as an NHL rookie for the final time on Thursday when the Hawks visit Ottawa.
• Friday and Sunday are quiet during Easter Weekend, but Saturday brings a huge, 15-game slate. Nashville in Colorado is a tasty Central matchup, while the Islanders and Lightning slug it out in Tampa in a game that has implications in the chase for the playoffs.
Also that night, having just watched Oshie be feted for his 1,000th game, Capitals defenceman John Carlson will skate in Game 1,000 of a fantastic career when the Caps host the Bruins.